A tiny, vegetarian nice ape might have lived in western Europe 11.6 million years in the past. Smaller and lighter than every other identified nice ape, the newly found 10-kilogram primate was a talented climber that most likely ate leaves, says Madelaine Böhme on the College of Tübingen in Germany.

“It’s fairly a small primate,” she says. “Nevertheless it differs from all identified fossils and, in fact, all residing nice apes we all know thus far.”

About 15 million years in the past, in the midst of the Miocene Epoch, hominoids – the nice apes – grew to become rarer in Africa and extra ample in Europe. Whereas they generally shared habitats with different primates reminiscent of pliopithecoids – extinct cousins of apes and Previous World monkeys – hominoid species didn’t seem to coexist with one another in Europe.

In 2019, Böhme and her colleagues reported the invention of 37 bones at Bavaria’s Hammerschmiede archaeological website that appeared to come back from an early bipedal ape from 11.6 million years in the past, which they named Danuvius guggenmosi.

Through the excavations, Böhme was stunned when she discovered two tiny, ape-like enamel and a kneecap in the identical layer of sediment because the Danuvius fossils.

“We saved saying: ‘What is that this?’” she says of those smaller fossils. “After which we determined, OK, it’s clear: that is one thing new.”

The fossils are too previous for DNA evaluation, says Böhme. So the researchers took detailed measurements of the 7-millimetre-long molar and the 16-millimetre-wide kneecap, each from a juvenile, in addition to a smaller premolar fragment, which they are saying got here from a younger grownup. Additionally they calculated the thickness of the enamel and ran microscopic CT scanning of the enamel.

The skinny enamel, like that of gorillas, suggests a tender weight-reduction plan most likely composed of leaves, says Böhme. The form, thickness and ligament attachment websites of the kneecap resemble these of tree-living primates, hinting that the ape was a proficient climber.

The researchers named the brand new ape Buronius manfredschmidi, after the medieval title of a metropolis close to the Hammerschmiede website, and a dentist named Manfred Schmid who has been amassing fossils from the positioning for the reason that Nineteen Seventies.

Lack of competitors for sources would possibly clarify why the Buronius and Danuvius apes may reside collectively, says Böhme – Danuvius is believed to have eaten onerous meals like nuts and presumably meat. The group can not rule out the chance that the bigger ape, which could have been as much as thrice heavier, might have generally consumed the smaller species, she provides.

Nonetheless, the three fossils won’t be enough to make such “grandiloquent” conclusions, says Sergio Almécija on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York Metropolis. “May the smaller fossil components belong to an childish Danuvius particular person?” he asks. “The enamel actually appear like they might be deciduous [baby teeth].”

He additionally wonders whether or not the kneecap represents the identical species because the enamel. “Although it’s advised that it belongs to a juvenile particular person, its dimension overlaps with the decrease vary of grownup orangutans [which are much larger apes],” says Almécija.

Clément Zanolli on the College of Bordeaux, in France, additionally has doubts. “It’s not very clear to me if the enamel – and specifically the molar – belong to the hominoids or to a different primate superfamily, the pliopithecoids.”

Böhme and her colleagues say their comparisons dominated out the chance that the enamel are child enamel or pliopithecoid enamel.

In any case, the chance that two primate species shared the identical habitat and even perhaps interacted with one another is a “implausible discovery”, says Zanolli. “This exhibits as soon as once more that, at the moment, Europe was an expensive and hospitable place for primates to evolve.”